Zia Sheikh – Tafseer of Surah AnNahl ayah 77 onward 1142016
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The speakers discuss the use of the word "cycel" in Islam, which refers to the presence of the creator in the sky. They also discuss the importance of knowing oneself and how it affects others' perception. The segment explores the use of "the" word in Islam, including its relation to the birth of a new baby and the natural and organic nature of Islam. The importance of hearing and seeing things is emphasized, and the use of "ances" in English is discussed. Finally, the speakers emphasize the natural and organic nature of Islam and its ability to create something and practice what is being said and heard.
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I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed
Satan.
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious,
the Most Merciful.
And to Allah belongs the unseen of the
heavens and the earth.
And the command of the Hour is only
like the blink of an eye, or it
is nearer.
Indeed, Allah is Able to do all things.
And Allah has brought you out of the
wombs of your mothers, knowing nothing.
And He has made for you hearing and
sight and hearts.
And the hearts, that you may be grateful.
Have they not seen the birds, prostrated in
the air of the sky?
None holds them but Allah.
Indeed in that are signs for a people
who believe.
And in these following verses, Allah SWT then
turns our attention towards His greatness.
And how does He do that?
By making us focus on His creation, what
He has created for us, and the beautiful
nature of that creation, and how it works
so flawlessly.
And through pondering into that creation, we are
supposed to understand the greatness of Allah SWT.
So the first portion of the verse, Allah
SWT says, وَلِلَّهِ غَيْبُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ Only Allah
SWT has the hidden knowledge of the skies
and the earth.
So, first of all, Allah SWT uses what
is known as Al-Hasr.
تَخْذِيمُ شَيْءٍ حَقُّهُ التَّأْخِيرُ يُفِيدُ الْحَسْرِ What does
that mean?
The actual sentence is supposed to be like
this, غَيْبُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ لِلَّهِ But Allah SWT
put, لِلَّهِ غَيْبُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ has been brought
forward, and that indicates stress.
That only Allah SWT has the hidden knowledge
of the skies and the earth.
So what is hidden knowledge?
Let's talk a little bit about that.
There are two words in the Quran that
are used for the kingdom of Allah SWT.
One is called Mulk and the other is
Malakut.
Mulk means the kingdom of Allah SWT which
is apparent to our eyes, which we can
see, which we can reflect upon, which we
can actually see with our senses, which we
can feel with our senses.
The word Mulk defines that.
As for the word Malakut, it refers to
those things that we cannot see, that we
cannot feel, that we don't know about.
As the Prophet SAW, he was actually given
three types of knowledge.
And one of those knowledges was that knowledge
which the Prophet SAW gave to everybody without
any type of restriction.
The second type of knowledge was that knowledge
that only the Prophet SAW gave to certain
individuals and amongst the Sahaba who he felt
would use that knowledge properly and would not
abuse that knowledge.
And then there is a third type of
knowledge that the Prophet SAW was not allowed
to disclose to anybody.
And part of that may even be things
that the Prophet himself did not even know.
For example, the issue of when the Day
of Judgment will take place.
Jibreel came in the shape of a human
being to the Prophet SAW and asked him
certain questions.
And amongst those questions was, When will the
hour of the Day of Judgment take place?
What was the response?
The person who has been questioned, he doesn't
have more knowledge than the one who is
even questioning.
So even Jibreel SAW doesn't know certain hidden
things, including when the Day of Judgment will
take place.
So this word Malakut, it defines all those
things, all those things of Allah SWT's kingdom
that are hidden from the human being.
And that is why when Ibrahim SAW was
pondering into the heavens and the earth, Allah
SWT says, Allah SWT showed him hidden things
of the heavens and the earth so that
he could get a strength in Iman and
he could have more connection with Allah SWT.
So this word Malakut is used to denote
that hidden knowledge that Allah SWT gave him.
Now when it comes to human beings not
having knowledge of the unseen, one might assume
that that's a deficiency in the human.
I don't know certain things.
I don't know hidden things about any one
of you.
And you don't know hidden things about myself.
And one might assume that for a human
being that is actually a deficiency.
The reality is that this is not a
deficiency.
This is actually a blessing from Allah SWT
that there are certain things about each other
that remain hidden.
And that is really truly a blessing in
many senses.
And one of them is that if truly
we were to find out hidden things about
a person or the sins that he might
have committed in the past or he is
committing, then respect for that individual would diminish
in our eyes.
So say for example any one of you
found out that I am committing a certain
sin.
I am involved in disobeying Allah SWT.
I am sure that the majority of people
will not even want to pray behind me
as an Imam because it would diminish the
value of myself in your eyes.
And the same thing applies to all humans.
That somebody that we assume is a good
Muslim and we assume that he has good
habits, we assume that he is coming to
the Masjid and yet he may be doing
something which is against the command of Allah
SWT.
If we were to find out about all
of these things, about everybody, then nobody would
trust each other anymore.
Nobody would respect each other anymore.
Nobody would love each other anymore simply for
the sake of the fact that we have
La ilaha illallah in our hearts.
So it is a very delicate situation that
Allah SWT has basically kept us from knowing
about and that is for a reason.
There is a wisdom behind it.
So it is not a deficiency.
That is actually a true blessing that we
do not have hidden knowledge about each other.
Allah SWT, He also gives us knowledge from
time to time and He increases our knowledge
from time to time and it is actually
the knowledge that Adam AS was given when
he was created.
That Allah SWT, He gave the names of
everything.
And Allah SWT, He taught Adam AS the
names of everything.
The names of everything means that Adam AS
in his genes and in his DNA, Allah
SWT put the knowledge that is going to
be disclosed until the Day of Judgment.
So we make new discoveries all the time.
We make scientific discoveries.
On many occasions, the scientific discoveries are by
accident.
A person is researching something else and he
finds something else.
A medicine is used for a certain purpose
and it emerges that that medicine actually benefits
a person from a different perspective.
So we see that all the time.
Many, many scientific discoveries, they were actually discovered
by scientists by complete accident.
They just came across them.
So this knowledge that Allah SWT has given
us, it is basically given to us in
a measured time.
It is given to us over time.
It is given to us not completely 100
% in one go, but slowly, slowly we
have made discoveries and we see technology advancing
and new things being discovered all the time.
This is actually the knowledge that was given
to Adam AS, but slowly, slowly it is
becoming more and more clear to us.
As Allah SWT says, that we have the
knowledge of everything, the treasures of everything.
We have it and we teach it over
time to the people.
So this was what is meant by the
hidden knowledge.
Only Allah SWT has the hidden knowledge of
the skies and the earth.
And when we say skies and the earth,
it doesn't literally mean just the skies and
the earth.
Basically, anything in the universe, everything is included
in the skies and the earth.
Under the ground, over the ground, in the
skies, in the heavens, everything is included in
the knowledge of the heavens and the earth.
And as for the matter of the hour,
the day of judgment, it is only just
like lamhul basar.
What does lamhul basar mean?
Lamhul basar refers to when an eye is
pointing in a certain direction and it goes
in another direction.
This is called lamhul basar.
How long does it take to do that?
Going from looking to the right, for example,
to looking to the left.
This is called lamhul basar.
So Allah SWT says that the matter of
the day of judgment, it is just like
lamhul basar.
It will come suddenly.
And the time for it is very, very
small.
Now why Allah SWT uses lamhul basar?
It is for us as human beings to
understand the shortness of that time.
Otherwise, it is not even that short.
It is much shorter than that even.
It is much shorter than that.
When we say, When Allah SWT wants something
to be and to be in existence, Allah
SWT says to it, and it becomes.
So this word kun, it takes time to
say the word kun.
But Allah SWT doesn't even need that time.
Allah SWT doesn't even need to say to
that thing kun.
The same thing applies here.
That the word lamhul basar is used to
indicate the shortness of time.
And this word is used for us as
human beings to understand the shortness of the
time that exists until the day of judgment.
We say this all the time, in the
blink of an eyelid.
It happened so quickly, it was like the
blink of an eyelid.
So it may have happened in a millisecond,
but the blink of an eyelid is what
we understand to be the shortest possible time
for us to understand how short that time
was.
So that's why after that Allah SWT says,
Or it is even closer than that.
So the day of judgment is just like
lamhul basar, the moving of an eye, or
even closer than that.
Indeed Allah SWT has power over everything.
Allah SWT then goes into making us focus
from the knowledge of the heavens and the
earth to the knowledge of the baby that
comes into this world without any knowledge at
all.
So again, stark difference between the knowledge of
the universe and all the different types of
knowledges that are out there, and then that
baby that arrives with a clean slate.
Allah says, Allah SWT made you come out
from the stomachs of your mothers.
The word butoon is used here, and batan
means stomach, but the word really for the
womb is rahm.
So rahm is inside the stomach.
So the example to understand what Allah SWT
is saying here is like, if I say
to you that I have money in my
pocket, so I have money in my pocket,
but that money is actually inside a wallet.
So I don't have to say that that
money is inside my wallet, and that wallet
is in my pocket.
So similarly Allah SWT has used the word
butoon, but it refers to the womb in
which the baby is produced and it grows,
the fetus grows.
So this is why Allah SWT used the
word butoon.
Allah SWT made you come out from the
stomachs of your mothers, and you didn't know
anything.
So what is this?
What is this miracle that Allah SWT describes
to us throughout the Quran?
He tells us time and again this creation
of the human being that takes place.
It is a miracle that we see all
the time, yet we don't reflect upon it.
Allah SWT has created in front of us
a life from nothing.
There was no life before.
The human being, me, you, before we were
born, before we were in the wombs of
our mothers, we were not a thing mentioned.
We weren't mentioned, nobody knew what we were,
who we were, we didn't have a name.
Then Allah SWT made us in the wombs
of our mothers and gave us a creation.
So here, and this creation is khalqan min
ba'di khalq.
Allah describes it in another verse in the
Quran.
It is a creation after creation.
So what is that creation after creation?
When the time, the gestation period of the
baby is completed in the womb of the
mother, then the baby comes out.
So at one point, that baby was completely
reliant upon everything that takes place in the
mother's womb.
The nutrition from the umbilical cord, the oxygen
and everything is produced and provided through the
mother.
When the baby is about to be born
and the water breaks of the mother, then
a completely new creation takes place.
And now that baby is now relied upon
the atmosphere and the world outside the mother's
womb.
So this is a creation after creation.
So one of the unique things about the
baby, and again it's so miraculous, the people
that study the science, is that before it's
about to be born, the head emerges to
the bottom of the womb so that it
gets ready to come out head first.
And this is the normal birth that takes
place.
If the feet are down and the baby
doesn't turn, this is known as a breech
baby.
And that can be dangerous for the mother
and the child.
That the child, if it doesn't get oxygen
immediately, then it can create brain damage and
it can have long-term detrimental effects upon
the baby.
So Allah SWT, for the most part, 99
.9% of the time, we see that
the baby, it comes down the head first
and then, you know, it is easy for
that baby to come out.
It becomes ready to accept its new creation
outside the womb.
So Allah SWT, He is describing it.
Allah SWT, He made you come out from
the wombs of your mothers.
And you were in a state that you
didn't know anything.
We came out of our wombs, we didn't
know any language.
We didn't know what the world is about.
We didn't know who our mothers were, who
our fathers were.
We didn't know how to speak.
The only thing that we were taught by
Allah SWT is how to cry.
If we need something, cry.
If the diaper needs changing, cry.
If you need to be fed, cry.
Stomach problem, cry.
Sick, cry.
So this is the extent of the knowledge
of the baby.
That Allah SWT even taught the baby to
basically demand and ask for its things by
crying.
So sometimes the mother does everything that she
can in terms of feeding and everything.
And yet the baby continues to cry.
So then people realize that there is something
wrong.
There is an illness, there is a problem.
Maybe the baby is starting to have teeth.
Maybe there is colic.
Maybe there is a stomach problem and so
on.
So in any case, you didn't have any
knowledge.
Nobody had any knowledge as they came out
from the mothers' wombs.
وَجَعَلَ لَكُمُ السَّمَعَ وَالْأَبْصَارَ وَالْأَفْئِذَةَ Allah SWT made
for you Samar, Absar and Afidah.
He made for you hearing and he made
for you eyes and hearts.
So this is the unique way that Allah
SWT has described the sequence of knowledge that
the baby has.
By first of all hearing, the first thing
that the baby does is hear things.
To the extent that even a newborn baby,
if you were to shout unexpectedly, it will
jump up.
A newborn baby, one day old, it will
get a shock and it will jump up.
Because Allah SWT first of all gave it
the ability to hear.
Then in the first few days, the baby
cannot see anything.
It cannot see its mother, it cannot see
anybody around it.
It takes about 10 to 12 days for
it to start seeing.
So the next step is Absar.
Allah SWT gave it vision.
While Afidah and hearts, meaning the ability to
retain knowledge, it comes after about a year
or two that the baby starts remembering things.
So if we were to think back, we
probably don't remember anything from the first two
years of our life.
But after two years, maybe when we were
three or four, maybe we remember the first
memories from our life, we can remember them.
So this order Allah SWT has put, hearing,
seeing and hearts, it is for a specific
reason that knowledge comes in that specific order.
One question is that Allah used the word
Sam' in the singular and He used the
word Absar in plural and Afidah also in
plural.
Why is that?
The answer is that when we are listening,
when everybody is listening to something, everybody hears
everything simultaneously.
Everybody is sitting here, everybody is hearing my
voice at the same time.
It's as if it's one hearing for everyone.
It is not different.
As for the eyes, one is looking in
this direction, one is looking in my direction,
one is looking in that direction, somebody who
is sitting here is looking in that direction.
So vision, everyone has a different vision.
So what brother Yasir is seeing is not
the same as Abu Riyan, for example.
So Absar, visions, everyone has different visions.
So as for Sam' hearing, everyone's hearing is
the same at the same time.
So that's why the word Sam' is used
singular, Absar is used singular, plural and Afidah
is the plural of Fu'at, hearts.
Everyone's thinking is also different at the same
time.
So that's why this is also plural.
So La'allakum Tashkunoon, Allah SWT gave you
these abilities so that you can be grateful.
So Allah SWT gave us our senses and
our thinking, our eyes, our vision, everything so
that we could appreciate the blessings of Allah
SWT and we could be grateful for them.
So a person doesn't appreciate the blessings until
sometimes he loses those blessings, the blessing of
hearing, the blessing of seeing, the blessing of
touch, the blessing of digestion.
So we should always be grateful for whatever
Allah SWT has given us, especially from the
five senses that we have and the ability
to walk and talk and to express ourselves.
Truly these are blessings that we should not
take for granted.
After that, Allah then tells us to focus
on the birds.
And again, the birds are a miracle by
themselves.
That they are given the ability to fly
long distances, maybe sometimes hundreds of miles at
one go.
And this is again, scientists have discussed and
researched this, how birds that are in the
north, they come back to the south when
the weather gets cold and they travel and
they go back to exactly the same spot
every single year.
They go when it gets hot in the
north, they go back to the north and
they go exactly to the same spot.
And when it gets cold in the north,
they come to the south and they come
exactly to the same spot.
And they fly hundreds and hundreds of miles
to get to these distances.
So again, it's amazing that Allah SWT tells
us to focus on these birds.
What does it say?
أَلَمْ يَرَوْا إِلَى الطَّيْرِ مُسَخَّرَاتٍ فِي جَوِّ السَّمَاءِ
مَا يُمْسِكُهُنَّ إِلَّا اللَّهُ Do they not see
the skies that have been musakharat, meaning they
have been set free in the midst of
the skies.
في جوِّ السَّمَاءِ In the midst of the
skies.
مَا يُمْسِكُهُنَّ إِلَّا اللَّهُ Only Allah SWT is
holding them up.
So, one might say that no, it's not
Allah SWT holding them up.
It is the wings that are flapping, that
are holding up the birds.
Well, how many times have you seen birds
that are not flapping their wings, they are
just gliding.
They just have their wings out and they
are just floating here and there.
Especially the birds of prey.
And then there are so many birds that
basically when they are hunting, what they do
is, they basically put their wings inside and
they dive down to get their prey.
And it's just like a bullet coming down.
Many of them, they dive down, they can
see the fish from the sky.
They can see the fish all the way
from the sky and they dive into the
sea, into the water and they grab that
fish right from the 10 or 12 feet
under the water.
Amazing ability that Allah SWT has given these
birds.
So, we need to understand and focus on
these creatures to again understand the greatness of
Allah SWT that he has enabled these creatures
to do these things.
The fish, you know, the salmon that, you
know what they do, where they are born.
Where they are born, they come back from
the ocean, they come back and they go
against the flow of the river to go
back to the area they were born and
then they lay eggs there in exactly the
same place that they were born.
How do they know that?
Only Allah SWT taught them this.
Exactly the same spot that they are born,
they come back and lay eggs in that
same spot.
GPS, satellites or some kind of tracking device,
how do they know?
Only Allah SWT has taught them.
So, we should, again the purpose of these
verses is for us to focus on the
creation of Allah SWT and from focusing on
that to understand the greatness of Allah.
مَن يُنسِقُهُنَّ إِلَّا اللَّهُ Only Allah SWT holds
these birds up.
إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَآيَاتٍ لِقَوْمٍ يُؤْمِنُونَ Indeed, in
these things there are signs for people of
Iman.
Only people of Iman ponder into these things
and through pondering into these things their Iman
increases.
رَبَّنَا مَا خَلَقْتَ هَذَا بَاطِلًا Oh Allah, you
didn't create anything in vain.
سُبْحَانَكَ Oh Allah, you are pure from all
defects.
So, I pray that Allah SWT gives us
Tawfiq to understand and focus on His greatness
and I pray that Allah SWT gives us
the ability through pondering into His creation to
understand His greatness.
I pray that Allah SWT gives us Tawfiq
to practice what is being said and heard.
Insha'Allah we will continue next week.